[11thEarlOfMar]

The Internet is the multiplier of many huge economic forces. Some that come to mind:

- Productivity of a single worker: Izya, a mechanical engineering friend, used to spend hours in the engineering library trying to find the right part among hundreds of component catalogs. He now spends about 10 minutes browsing the web, on his smart phone, during lunch, at the local sandwich shop.

- Scale of an enterprise: Wal-Mart, Amazon and all companies of similar scale are effectively IT companies. What they actually sell is simply a side-effect of their IT operations. It is mind boggling to try to imagine the infrastructure and logistics involved in selling $1,300,000,000 worth of consumer goods per day.

- Return on Investment: Even the oil barons would be green with envy at an Instagram, or Twitter or Facebook and the absurdly low amount up front capital paid in to establish these business.

The Internet has changed everything. All of us, from governments to CEOs to grandmothers will spend our lives running to keep up with it.